We picked up our new point-of-lay hens last weekend, four little brown feathery bundles of joy who seem to be settling in well to their new home in their fox-proof run in the garden.

In answer to the age-old question, in this case the chicken definitely came before the egg because it'll be three or four weeks before they start laying. But I'm already planning ahead to all the omelettes, frittatas, tortillas, souffles, pancakes and cakes I'll be able to make when they do. Here's a recipe on account, as it were.

Goats' Cheese Frittata (serves 2-4)

Ingredients:

A frittata (stop me if I'm teaching you how to suck eggs) is the Italian version of the tortilla, or Spanish omelette. Unlike a light, fluffy French omelette, it's designed to cook as a single thick cake which you cut into wedges. It makes a very good supper or lunch and an easily portable picnic dish.

Ingredients:

5-6 eggs

15g grated Parmesan

1 fat clove of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

3-4 spring onions

1 heaped tbsp chopped parsley

About half a small goat's cheese log, cut into 70mm (1/4") rounds

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Olive oil

Method:

Finely chop the white part of the spring onions. Very finely slice the green part into thin rings and keep separate.

Heat a tablespoon of oil in a skillet and gently fry the white part of the onions until soft but barely tinged with gold. Add the chopped garlic and fry for a minute more. Set aside to cool.

Break the eggs into a bowl and whisk until blended. Add the grated parmesan, sliced spring onions tops, the chopped parsley and the cooled, cooked spring onions and garlic. Stir well to mix and season to taste.

Heat your grill to high as you'll need it later in the process.

In an omelette pan or small, deep-sided frying pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil over a medium heat on the stove.

Pour in the egg mixture and cook for a minute or two. Reduce the heat to very low and continue to cook without stirring until the mixture sets. Take your time. If you cook the frittata too fast you'll end up with a leathery bottom, which is a fate I would wish on no-one. So low and slow, please.

When the mixture is nearly set but still a bit soft and runny on top, arrange the discs of goat's cheese over the surface, pressing them down lightly.

Put the pan under the grill (not the handle, obviously) and cook until the top of the omelette has set and the goat's cheese is hot and turning a bit melty.

Slide the frittata onto a plate and let it rest for about 10 minutes. I think it's best eaten warm but if you do put it in the fridge, bring it back to room temperature before serving.

It's good with a green salad dressed with a lemony vinaigrette. Now I just need the hens to start laying.

My house is turning into a zoo. It's Chinese New Year and 2015 is the year of the sheep (or the goat, as they seem to be interchangeable in the Chinese horoscope); I'm cooking chicken and I'm being watched over by a lucky golden carp and one of those beaming cats that waves its paw at you.

My husband was born in the Year of the Tiger and I'm a Rooster. Don't go there. Maybe we should concentrate on the chicken.

So here's a quick and easy recipe for what are, essentially, Chinese chicken nuggets. Naturally, children love them. Served with equally speedy stir-fried noodles and maybe some wilted pak choi, you can make a tasty meal in the time it takes for the local takeaway to deliver something gloopy and orange. A dipping sauce is good on the side (see below).

Golden Five Spice Chicken

Ingredients:

1 chicken breast per person, cubed

1 tbsp dark soy sauce

1 tbsp mirin or dry sherry

1 level tspn Chinese five-spice powder

1/2 tspn runny honey (or soft brown sugar)

1 thumb of fresh ginger, peeled and grated

2 spring onions, trimmed and finely chopped

2 cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

1 large egg, beaten

60g cornflour

Up to 500ml vegetable oil

Method:

In a large bowl, mix together 2 tablespoons of the oil with the soy sauce, mirin, five-spice powder, honey, ginger, spring onions and garlic. Stir in the chicken cubes and marinate for at least one hour.

Stir the beaten egg into the mix in the bowl, put the cornflour on a plate and roll the chicken cubes in the flour.

Heat about three inches of oil in a wok on a moderate heat, add the chicken and deep-fry for 3-4 minutes, then raise the heat to high and fry until golden brown and cooked through (about another minute or two).

Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper.

For the egg noodles, cook according to packet instructions then toss with a splash of sesame oil. Stir-fry chopped ginger and garlic for half a minute, add a double handful of sliced mushrooms and cook a minute more, then four or five spring onions, shredded lengthways, plus the noodles. Stir fry until heated through. Pour in a tablespoon each of light soy sauce and oyster sauce, let it sizzle up and serve.

For the dipping sauce, put two crushed garlic cloves, a thumb of ginger peeled and grated and a tablespoon of finely chopped spring onions in a bowl. Add two tablespoons each of dark soy sauce and mirin and stir well.]]>Blini Daytag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2015:/theblog//3.66685882015-02-13T04:33:48-05:002015-02-16T05:59:01-05:00Linda Duffinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-duffin/
I love pancakes. Last year we ate crepes stuffed and baked, American-style buttermilk pancakes smothered in maple syrup and Chinese pancakes crammed with crispy duck. That's a lot of pancakes. So this year I thought it was time to revisit the small but perfectly formed blini.

The most memorable blinis I ever ate were in Moscow, after a grim working visit as a journalist to Chechnya, reporting on a conflict that left thousands dead and the Chechen capital, Grosny, in ruins.

As reporters, we were the lucky ones because unlike the Chechens, we got to leave the war behind. But my sympathy for the civilian population didn't stop me indulging in hot and cold running room service once I was safely back in Moscow.

The Chechen capital, Grosny, after Russian bombing, winter 1994/95

We'd been living in a refugee centre, eating army rations and with limited access to hot water, so I shut myself in my hotel room, ran the biggest, bubbliest bath I could and scrubbed and soaked myself until I looked like a pink prune. Then I ordered blinis and caviar and cracked open a split of champagne. It was bliss.

I've tried several blini recipes over the years but I really like this one from Richard Bertinet. They're in his book Crust, published by Kyle Books. They take a while to make but they're worth the wait. You can always take a foamy, relaxing bath while the mixture rises and produces its own bubbles, because unlike most pancakes, blinis contain yeast.

Richard Bertinet uses fresh yeast; as I didn't have any I've taken the liberty of adapting his recipe to use fast action yeast.

Richard has a great tip, too, based on his Breton grandma's technique: to oil the pan before cooking, dip a cut potato into cooking oil and, holding it with a fork, rub it over the surface of the pan. He says, and he's right, it gives you just the right thin film of oil.

Buckwheat Blinis (makes 10-15 small blinis and around 6 bigger ones)

Ingredients:

75g buckwheat flour

75g strong white (bread) flour

5g salt

150g (weight) milk

3.5g fast action yeast

2 large eggs

80g crème fraîche

Vegetable oil (and half a potato) for greasing

Method:

Combine the flours, salt and fast action yeast in a mixing bowl.

Pour the milk into a pan and heat until it's just at boiling point. Remove from the heat.

Separate the eggs, preferably using the bogeyman egg separator you've just been given for your birthday.

Add the eggs yolks to the slightly cooled milk in the pan, along with the crème fraîche. Pour this mixture slowly into the flour, stirring well, until you have a thick batter.

Cover the bowl with a clean tea towel and leave to rest for an hour and a half until the batter has risen and looks bubbly and spongy.

Whisk the eggs whites to soft peaks and fold gently into the batter. Cover the bowl again and leave to rest for a further two hours.

To cook, oil a frying pan (or several small blini pans if you have them) and heat it on the stove. Pour in small round puddles of batter and when they start to bubble (about 30 seconds for small blinis, one minute for bigger ones), turn them over and cook for the same amount of time until light golden brown on the other side.

Remove from the pan and either leave to cool on a wire rack or eat warm with a dab of crème fraîche and a dollop of caviar, or smoked salmon and a sprig of fresh dill. You can also add finely chopped (boiled) egg white and sieved egg yolks to the topping, which is how mine were served in Moscow. In the unlikely event you have any leftover blinis, they freeze well, cooked and wrapped in greaseproof paper.

]]>Amaretti Berry Crumblestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2015:/theblog//3.65465922015-02-06T19:00:00-05:002015-02-06T11:59:01-05:00Linda Duffinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-duffin/ Adding Amaretti biscuits to the crumble mix gives it a lovely lift of almondy flavour that marries so well with fruit, especially blackberries and raspberries. I pinched the idea from the excellent Mark Hix but went a step further this time and added a slug of Amaretti liqueur to the fruit.

I'm afraid you do need real (expensive) Amaretti biscuits for this. I've tried it with the cheap bulk packet versions and the Amaretti flavour seems to evaporate out during the cooking.

My sister-in-law likes to set the Amaretti wrappers alight and watch them float to the ceiling, but of course I couldn't possibly recommend this. It plays havoc with your table linen, too.

If you baulk at the cost of Amarettis, try adding crushed gingernut biscuits, chopped hazelnuts or flaked almonds instead.

I used our home-grown berries from the freezer but those frozen bags of forest fruits are pretty good, or you can use fresh seasonal fruit. Harder fruits will need five minutes pre-cooking in a pan with a tablespoon or two of water. I made six individual servings but you can make one big crumble if you prefer.

I've erred on the side of generosity with the amount of crumble topping - if you have any left over bung it in the freezer for next time.

Amaretti Berry Crumbles (serves 6)

Ingredients:

350g raspberries

150g redcurrants

350g blackberries

50g caster sugar (or to taste)

1 tbsp of Amaretti liqueur (optional)

For the crumble:

150g butter, diced

150g caster sugar

3 tbsp porridge oats

225g plain flour

20 Amaretti di Saronno biscuits (the harder ones)

Method:

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4.

If using frozen fruit, defrost in a single layer on big plates lined with kitchen paper, otherwise you will end up with too much liquid.

Put the berries in a pan with the sugar and cook gently for a couple of minutes until the sugar has dissolved, trying not to break up the fruits. Remove from the heat and stir in the Amaretti liqueur, if using.

Put the Amaretti biscuits in a big sealable freezer bag and crush into crumbs. Now add them to a food processor with the remaining crumble ingredients, or rub it all through your fingers, until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. It should clump together if you squash it between your fingers.

You can do both of these stages in advance, if you like, but don't put the crumble on the fruit until just before you want to cook.

Using a slotted spoon, divide the fruit between six large ramekins, or into one bigger dish, to about three-quarters full. (Any leftover juice makes great fruit lollies with a bit of extra sugar).

Spoon the crumble mix over the berries, filling to the top of the dish, and stand in a tin lined with kitchen foil in case they bubble over.

Cook for around 15-20 minutes until golden brown. Delicious with extra-thick double cream or a good vanilla ice cream.

]]>Marmalade Bakewell Tarttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2015:/theblog//3.65540342015-01-29T17:19:54-05:002015-01-30T07:59:01-05:00Linda Duffinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-duffin/ Proud of your home-made marmalade? You've only got a couple of weeks if you fancy your chances in the annual World Marmalade Awards, due to take place in Cumbria on February 28 and March 1.

With categories like Clergy Marmalade, Peers and Political and Campanologists Marmalade, there's surely an opportunity for everyone from high to low (or both if you're swinging from a bell rope).

We eat a lot of marmalade in our house and making it is a January ritual. There's still time, just about, to source some seasonal Sevilles and get stuck in. Most dedicated marmalade makers have their own favourite recipes. You can find mine here.

Delicious though marmalade is when spread on buttered toast, it has other culinary uses. Stirring some into a sauce for duck is the obvious choice, although orange flavours go well with pork, too. But don't stop at savoury dishes.

My mum used to make a classic Bakewell tart as a teatime treat and I loved it when I was a child. Here I've substituted Seville orange marmalade for the usual raspberry jam in the filling and as it turns out it's a really good combo. The marmalade provides a tangy contrast to the sweet shortcrust base and almond sponge topping.

Marmalade Bakewell Tart (serves 6-8)

Ingredients for the sweet shortcrust:

225g (6 oz) plain flour

Pinch of salt

100g (4 oz) butter, cubed

15g (1/2 oz) white cooking fat, cubed

25g (1 oz) caster sugar

3 tbsp cold milk

For the filling:

2-3 tbsp Seville orange marmalade

25g (1 oz) plain flour

1/2 level tspn baking powder

50g (2 oz) ground almonds

50g (2 oz) butter

50g (2 oz) caster sugar

1 egg, beaten

Few drop of almond extract

Flaked almonds for sprinkling on top

Method:

To make the pastry, sift the flour and salt together then rub in the cubes of fat using your fingertips (or whizz it all in a food processor) until it resembles breadcrumbs. Stir the milk into the sugar and sprinkle over the mixture and cut it in with a knife (or whizz again) until the dough clings together and leaves the sides of the bowl.

Turn onto a floured work surface and knead a couple of times to remove the cracks. Wrap in cling film and rest in the fridge for 15-20 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400f/200C/Gas Mark 6.

Roll out the pastry thinly on a floured board and use to line a loose-bottomed 20cm/8" flan ring or tart tin set on a baking tray. Don't trim it yet because it will shrink when you chill it again.

Spread the pastry base with the marmalade and pop it all back in the fridge while you make the topping.

Sift the second lot of flour and baking powder into a bowl and add the ground almonds. In another bowl, beat the butter and sugar until soft and fluffy.

Stir the almond essence into the egg and beat into the butter and sugar a bit at a time. Fold in the flour and ground almonds and mix until blended, easiest with a metal spoon. Trim the edges of the pastry case and spoon the topping over the marmalade.

Sprinkle with flaked almonds and bake in the centre of the oven for 30 minutes or until well risen and firm to the touch. Allow to cool before removing from the tin. Eat warm or cold, with cream or custard if you're feeling indulgent.

]]>Slow Roast Lamb Shoulder and Leftoverstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2015:/theblog//3.65085582015-01-23T09:16:42-05:002015-01-26T11:59:02-05:00Linda Duffinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-duffin/
You can prep the lamb the night before, which will give the garlic and rosemary more time to penetrate the meat and give you an extra half hour in bed.

We had some leftovers - lamb, roast potatoes and gravy - so I made a Moroccan-inspired shepherd's pie topped with a mix of baked squash and the roasties (below).

Slow Roast Lamb Shoulder (serves"6-8 with seconds"]

Ingredients:

1 large shoulder of lamb, about 3kg

3 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and cut into slivers

A few sprigs of rosemary

2 onions, peeled and cut into quarters

2-3 medium-sized carrots, scrubbed and trimmed

Half a head of celery, sliced crossways into chunks

Salt and pepper

500ml water

Method:

Cut slits into the lamb shoulder and insert slivers of garlic and tiny sprigs of rosemary (not the woody bits unless you want to be picking them out of your teeth later). Season well with salt and pepper and if you're doing this the night before, set aside in the fridge.

Remove the lamb from the fridge half an hour before you start cooking. Preheat the oven to 190C/375F/Gas Mark 5.

Scatter the onions and carrots across the base of a large roasting tin and sit the shoulder of lamb on top. Pour in the water, tent with foil and place in the oven.

After half an hour, turn the oven down to 150C/300F/Gas Mark 2 and cook for another four hours. Remove the foil and cook for a further half an hour to allow the lamb to brown.

Remove from the tin and keep warm. Discard the veg in the pan (you can save them for a soup or the shepherd's pie if you're feeling thrifty). Skim off any fat and thicken the gravy with either a little cornflour dissolved in a few tablespoons of water or for a glossier finish, whisk in some beurre manié (equal quantities of butter and flour mashed together to a paste). A couple of glasses of red wine don't go amiss, either: one for the gravy, one for the cook.

Try serving it with roast potatoes, a separate tin of roasted root veg and a big bowl of lightly-cooked greens. It's also good with steamed, well-drained leeks tossed in a little seasoned cream and sprinkled with a few chopped chives or spring onion tops.

Spicy Shepherd's Pie (serves 2-4)

I like Moroccan flavours with lamb but you can leave out the spices if you like for a more traditionally English result.

I made the topping with the leftover roast potatoes and extra butternut squash, but it's just as good if you use the spuds mixed with leftover cabbage or sprouts, a la bubble and squeak, in which case omit the ras el hanout and grate a bit of parmesan over the top.

Ingredients:

Around 400g leftover slow roast shoulder of lamb

1 onion, peeled and chopped

1 stick of celery, chopped

1 carrot (optional) peeled and chopped

1 tspn ground cumin

1 tspn ground coriander

300 ml gravy from the roast (and maybe some stock to loosen it, depending on quantities)

1 glass of red wine or a squeeze of tomato puree (or both)

Oil

For the topping:

About 300g roasted butternut squash, weighed after cooking and peeling

Chop the meat quite finely - I think this is nicer (and creates less washing-up) than mincing it. If you do it in a food processor, don't turn it into a slurry. It should still have texture.

In a deep, heavy frying pan heat a tablespoon of oil and fry the chopped onion, celery and carrot until softened. Stir in the cumin and coriander and cook gently for another minute.

Add the meat and stir well. Pour in the red wine and/or tomato puree along with the gravy (add stock or water if you don't have enough liquid) and cook until the mixture has thickened and reduced and the flavours have blended.

Check the seasoning and spoon into a gratin dish. Allow to cool.

In a food processor, blitz the roast potatoes but stop before they turn into mush - again, you want some texture.

Scrape the softened squash out of its skin and mash it with a good knob of butter and the ras el hanout, if using.

Stir in the blitzed roast potatoes. Check the seasoning and add plenty of ground black pepper plus salt to taste. Spoon onto the meat mixture, roughing up the top so you get some roasty, toasty bits when it's cooked.

Cook in the oven for around 30 minutes or until the top is golden brown and the filling is piping hot.

Possibly my favourite cake, this is a moist, lemony grown-up dessert and to my mind the perfect end to a meal. It's gluten-free, too, provided you use gluten-free baking powder.

I usually make one big cake but this time I experimented with smaller, individual servings, made in muffin tins.

These quantities will be enough for around eight generously-sized individual cakes or one large cake baked in a loose-bottomed 23cm/9" tin.

Lemon Polenta Drizzle Cakes (serves 8)

Ingredients:

250g granulated sugar

250g butter (or margarine, if you really must)

3 eggs

250g ground almonds

125g fine polenta (not the grainy sort)

3 lemons, zest and juice

2.5 g salt

5g baking powder (gluten free if necessary)

Plus 150g caster sugar for the drizzle.

Method:

Preheat the oven to 150C/300F/Gas Mark 2.

Zest the lemons and squeeze the juice, keeping them separate. Grease eight muffin tins or, if you're making one big cake, line the base of the tin and grease the sides with butter or Cake Release.

Beat the butter with the sugar until smooth, pale and fluffy. In another bowl, mix together the polenta, almonds, lemon zest, salt and baking powder.

Add a couple of spoons of the dried mix to the butter and sugar and beat it in. Crack in an egg and beat again.

Repeat until all the eggs have been incorporated into the batter (alternating the eggs and dry mix helps stop the batter from splitting). Now beat in any remaining dry mix.

Spoon into the muffin tins, filling to about halfway, and smooth the tops. Or spoon into the the larger cake tin and smooth. Give the tins a sharp rap on your work surface to settle the batter.

Bake the muffin-sized cakes for around 35-40 minutes and the larger cake for around an hour. A skewer inserted into the centre should come out clean and the sides of the cake(s) should be shrinking away from the sides.

While the cakes are cooking, put the lemon juice and caster sugar into a pan, stir to dissolve the sugar then boil until the mixture has reduced by half and is thick and syrupy. When the cake(s) are out of the oven make some holes in the top with a fine skewer or cake tester.

Pour over the lemon syrup. Allow to cool in the tins. Remove carefully using a small palette knife - next time I make this I think I'll use muffin tin liners.

Serve dusted with icing sugar, with creme fraiche or ice cream and fresh berries on the side.

I usually use this sauce for a Goan fish curry but after the meat-filled excesses of Christmas we were craving something different. So I adapted it to use a slightly frostbitten cauli I had sitting shivering in the fridge for a warming, flavour-packed but vegetarian supper. It would also work well with chunks of roasted pumpkin.

The touch of tamarind really lifts the creaminess of this curry and roasting the cauliflower first gives it a nice toasty nuttiness. You can add extra toasted nuts as a garnish: unsalted cashews are good, tossed in a little hot oil until golden.

If you'd prefer to make the curry with fish, just marinade 800g-1kg of any firm fish, cut into pieces, and/or raw, shelled prawns in the juice of half a lime with a pinch of turmeric and another of salt for 30 minutes, then drain and add to the cooked sauce, simmering very gently until the fish turns opaque and the prawns pink - a matter of minutes. Serve immediately.

You can make the sauce ahead of time and keep it in the fridge for up to 24 hours before adding the main ingredients just before you eat.

Goan Cauliflower Curry (serves 4)

Ingredients:

1 large-ish cauliflower, plus oil for roasting

1 good knob of butter and a dash of oil

2 medium onions, peeled and finely chopped

1 medium-hot chilli, de-seeded and finely chopped

1 thumb of fresh ginger, peeled and grated

3 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and finely chopped

1 tspn Kashmiri chilli powder or other mild-to-medium chilli powder

1/2 tspn ground turmeric

1 tspn ground cumin

2 tspn ground coriander

1 tin tomatoes, drained and chopped

1 tin coconut milk

A scant 1/2 tspn tamarind concentrate

Salt and pepper

Fresh coriander to garnish

Toasted cashew nuts, optional, to garnish

Method:

Preheat oven to 180C/350F/Gas Mark 4.

Break the cauliflower into bite-sized florets, drizzle with oil and roast in a baking tray for around 20 minutes, until it's tender and tinged with brown. Remove from the oven and set aside.

Heat the butter and oil in a deep, heavy pan and sweat the chopped onions very gently for about 20 minutes with a lid on, stirring often, until soft and golden brown.

Add the garlic, ginger and chilli and cook for another couple of minutes. Now add the tomatoes and stir through the tamarind and simmer for another few minutes.

Pour in the coconut milk and simmer until the mixture thickens, around 10-15 minutes, stirring to stop it catching.

Add the roasted cauliflower and heat through. Garnish with fresh coriander and the toasted cashew nuts, if using.

]]>Game Pietag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2015:/theblog//3.62893062015-01-04T19:00:00-05:002015-01-04T18:59:01-05:00Linda Duffinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-duffin/ This is a pie to be eaten hot on a cold wintery day after the sort of walk that leaves your ears and toes tingling and your hands reaching for the warmth of a log fire.

A classic country recipe, it can be made from any mix of game - try venison, pheasant, partridge, pigeon or rabbit. If you're short on game you can bulk it out with some stewing beef.

You'll need to plan ahead, both to marinate the meat and to pre-cook the pie filling so you don't overcook the pastry.

Although you can cut corners with ready-made pastry, I do strongly recommend you make the one in the recipe. It's deliciously short and buttery and makes a big difference to the finished pie.

Game Pie (serves 6)

Ingredients:

700g mixed game, to include some venison or beef

50-60g streaky bacon, smoked or unsmoked

225g mushrooms

A good knob of butter

2 tbsp plain flour

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Gravy browning (optional)

For the marinade:

1 large onion, peeled and chopped

1 stick of celery, washed and chopped

1/2 tspn coriander seeds

10 juniper berries (or use allspice)

2 bay leaves

Small bunch of parsley

225 ml red wine

50 ml olive oil

For the pastry:

225g plain flour

1/2 tspn salt

110g butter

40g white cooking fat

2 eggs yolks

1 egg, beaten, to glaze

Method:

Trim the meat of any gristle and cut the meat into bite-sized pieces. Crush the spices lightly and add to a large bowl with the meat and remaining marinade ingredients. Mix well, cover and leave to marinate for at least eight hours.

Then strain the marinade into a bowl and reserve the meat and vegetables.

Cut the bacon into lardons and fry it in a deep pan over a low heat until the fat runs. Add the butter to the pan and fry off the mushrooms for a minute or two.

Stir through the flour and cook for a minute or two more. Slowly add the strained marinade, stirring until the sauce thickens.

Put the meat and vegetables back into the pan, stir well and bring to boiling point. Season with black pepper and salt to taste, cover the pan and simmer over a low heat for around an hour and a half. Add a little stock or water if necessary.

Because the meat goes in unbrowned, you may want to add a little gravy browning to colour the gravy.

Once all the meat is tender, check the seasoning and adjust if necessary, thicken further if required, then allow the mixture to cool.

To make the pastry, sift the flour and salt into a bowl and rub in the two fats until you have a breadcrumb consistency.

Beat the egg yolks with two tablespoons of cold water and blend into the pastry, kneading it until it leaves the sides of the bowl clean. Add a tiny bit more water if required. Chill in the fridge for at least an hour.

Take a deep pie dish and spoon in the cold filling, placing a pastry funnel in the middle (use an upturned egg cup if you don't have one). If you have too much gravy, spoon some off to serve on the side.

On a floured surface, roll out the pastry to about 6mm thick. Be gentle with it, the butter and eggs make it hard to handle but it's worth it in the end.

Cut strips to put along the edge of the pie dish, moisten them with egg wash, then cover the pie with the remaining pastry. Seal and crimp the edges and brush the pastry with egg wash.

Bake in an oven preheated to 425F/220C/Gas Mark 7 for 20 minutes, then reduce the heat to 375F/190C/Gas Mark 5 and cook for a further 30 minutes or until the pie is golden brown.

Prepped in five minutes, cooked in less than 10, this is a super-quick supper dish that still packs loads of flavour.

No marinating, no waiting. Just instant (well, nearly) gratification and a light and spicy antidote to Christmas.

Serving suggestions: we had it with peas and baby potatoes because that's what I had handy at the end of a long day's work, but anything from wilted greens or a crisp green salad to lemon rice would work just as well.

Make a quick and simple sauce by mixing creme fraiche with grated lime and lemon zest, a tablespoon of chopped coriander or parsley and a pinch of salt.

Grilled Salmon with a Chilli Glaze (serves 2)

Ingredients:

2 salmon steaks (or 1 large tail fillet)

5-6 tbsp sweet chilli sauce

1 tbsp hot smoked pepper sauce (or use tabasco, to taste)

3 fat cloves of garlic, peeled and crushed

Method:

Heat the grill to high and line the grill pan with foil.

Mix the chilli sauce and hot sauce and stir in the crushed garlic. Brush liberally onto the salmon steaks.

Put the fish under the hot grill and cook for around eight minutes, depending on the thickness of the steaks, until the fish is cooked but juicy and the glaze is nicely burnished.

]]>Mrs Portly's Bloomerstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.62892082014-12-23T11:34:03-05:002015-02-22T05:59:01-05:00Linda Duffinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-duffin/
So I thought I'd share some of my culinary disasters instead, with their remedies where possible.

Let's start with that dratted turkey. When we moved into our present house we had the kitchen re-done. We installed an Aga and also an electric oven for those times, like Christmas, when you're trying to cook a dozen things at once.

Our first Christmas in the house, we bunged the turkey in the electric oven. But I inadvertently put it on the fan setting, which meant the oven was much hotter than I thought, so when we took the bird out at the end of its allotted time it literally fell to pieces. Thank goodness for roasting bags, I say, because they stopped it drying out and the bird was still moist.

The upside was it didn't need a whole lot of carving. There's not much you can do in those circumstances except dismember it discreetly in the kitchen, smother it with gravy and bread sauce and be thankful that you have a forgiving family.

Then there was the time I promised a cake to a friend to thank him for a favour. I got up at the crack of dawn and merrily embarked on the recipe, assuming I had everything to hand in my well-stocked cupboards.

Of course I didn't - as pictured here by Jamillah Knowles - and at 5.30 in the morning there's not much chance of 'phoning a friend or nipping to the shops for emergency supplies.

I had to substitute apricots for raisins and then realised - it was a boiled fruitcake - that I'd got evaporated milk rather than condensed milk, which is thicker and sweeter. In the end it turned out fine but that's not always the case.

It's often said there are cooks, and then there are bakers.

I definitely fall into the former category. Some of my cake and dessert making efforts have been catastrophic. Have a look at this:

It was a sweet shortcrust pastry and it fell to pieces when I tried to lift it from the pastry board to the flan case. That's not necessarily a complete disaster because (unless you're a professional pastry chef in which case this will never happen to you) you can patch it together and press it into the tin and once the filling is in nobody will be any the wiser. But on this occasion, when I blind baked it, it developed a crack across the base.

I know, I thought, I'll do that thing we did when the pork pie pastry cracked and the molten jelly ran out all over the kitchen. I'll make a stiff flour and water paste and paint it over the crack.

But I popped it back into the oven for a few minutes to set, forgot all about it and burned the blasted thing to a crisp. It went in the bin and I started from scratch (with a different sweet shortcrust recipe).

Baking is a science and if you get the proportions wrong or make ill-judged substitutions, you sometimes just have to chalk it up to experience. My cheesecake was a case in point. I substituted so many ingredients the result tasted like shaving foam. It was so revolting I fed it to the hens and even they had to keep wiping their beaks on the grass to get the gloop off.

Then there was the tarte au citron. It's my favourite dessert and I was making it for a supper party. It had loads of eggs and lemons in and I'd bought a giant new tart tin for the big reveal.

I still don't know exactly what went wrong, although using the wrong set of beaters may have had something to do with it. I cooked it and cooked and it just wouldn't set. When I served it up the filling ran out onto the plate - possibly the first time my guests have offered to eat their pudding with drinking straws.

But ingredients are expensive and I was determined these wouldn't go to waste. The next day I carefully scooped out the remaining filling, mixed it with whipped cream and called it a lemon posset. Jolly good it was too.

So if things go partridge-in-a-peartree-shaped in the kitchen for you this Christmas, don't panic. Think around the problem, get creative with your solutions and if all else fails, hit the bottle.

There was a famous occasion when my late mother-in-law had a house full of junior doctors one Christmas and forgot to turn the oven on for the turkey. They got dinner somewhere close to midnight but as they were all completely plastered by then, no-one minded a bit.

Have a very merry Christmas!]]>Game Terrinetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.62933522014-12-18T12:39:26-05:002015-02-17T05:59:01-05:00Linda Duffinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-duffin/
It's important to season it well, even if you're a paid-up member of the Salt Police, otherwise it will taste insipid once it has cooled.

It's based on a recipe from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage Cookbook. Highly recommended (the terrine and the book).

Game Terrine (serves 8-10 easily)

Ingredients:

750g lean game meat: choose from pheasant, partridge, duck and pigeon breasts, saddle and hindquarters of rabbit and venison leg or fillet

Oil for frying

Salt and pepper

300g unsmoked streaky bacon to line the dish

For the forcemeat:

500g good quality sausage meat

About 175g chicken livers or livers from the game

2 handfuls fresh white breadcrumbs

1 egg

3 tbsp finely chopped parsley

Leaves picked from a few sprigs of thyme

5-6 juniper berries, crushed

2 garlic cloves, peeled and finely chopped

Splash of red wine

Splash of brandy

Plenty of salt and pepper

Method:

Line the terrine

Make the forcemeat - chop the livers finely and add to a large bowl with the sausage meat.

Combine, then add the breadcrumbs, egg, herbs, juniper berries and garlic. Add a splash each of red wine and brandy, season well with salt and pepper and mix everything together thoroughly.

Cut the game into similar-sized pieces, about one or two fingers thick.

Remove any rind from the bacon and run the back of a heavy knife along each rasher to stretch it out. Use it to line a 1kg loaf tin or terrine, overlapping the rashers slightly and leaving enough hanging over the edge of the dish to fold over the top later.

Arrange a layer of forcemeat in the terrine, followed by a layer of game meat, repeating until you get to the top and ending with a layer of forcemeat. Make sure you season each layer with salt and pepper as you go.

Fold the ends of the bacon rashers over the top and cover well with kitchen foil (or foil and a lid).

Put the terrine in a roasting dish half filled with water and place in an oven preheated to 170C/325F/Gas Mark 3 for about one and a half to two hours. Top up the water if necessary.

To check whether it's done insert a metal skewer into the centre of the terrine - it should come out piping hot. If not, it's not ready.

When it's done, place a piece of wood that fits snugly inside the terrine on top and weight it down well. If you don't have heavy weights, use a well-wrapped brick or two. Leave it overnight or until completely cold.

To serve, dip the base of the terrine quickly into hot water and invert the dish onto a board or platter. Slice thickly with a very sharp knife.

This will freeze, very well wrapped, for a month or two. Make sure it is fully defrosted before eating.

It pays to get ahead at Christmas. A bit of effort now - assuming you have the freezer space - and you'll have something warm and comforting to come home to after Midnight Mass or to feed the assembled family when you've all tired of turkey.

A personal favourite is the classic Boeuf Bourguignon, slow cooked in a good red wine and garnished with baby onions and mushrooms. Serve it with celeriac mash or just buttery mashed potato and some steamed broccoli or carrot batons and you will have peace and goodwill at the dining table.

You can marinade the beef, if you like, in the red wine with the addition of two tablespoons of olive oil and a sliced onion. Leave it for four to six hours and keep the strained marinade to add later in the cooking.

Or you can skip this step, as I did. I made twice the quantity below. If you'd like to do the same, just double up on all the ingredients.

Classic Beouf Bourguignon (serves 4-6)

Ingredients:

1 kilo stewing beef (shin is best)

About 85g streaky bacon, smoked or unsmoked

150ml red wine

300ml good beef stock, preferably home-made

1 clove garlic

Bouquet garni of thyme, parsley and bay leaf

Freshly ground black pepper and maybe a little salt

Olive oil

1-2 tbsp flour

To garnish:

250g small mushrooms

12-18 baby onions

Method:

Trim the beef of any gristle and cut into large bite-sized chunks.

Peel the onions - a labour of love - and quarter the mushrooms if they're too big.

Heat a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a large, heavy pan and quickly fry off the beef in batches until browned on all sides. Remove from the pan and set aside.

Cut the bacon into lardons and melt them in the pan until they're translucent but not browned. Remove and set aside with the beef.

Add a little more oil to the pan and fry the baby onions until golden all over. Set aside until later.

Now add the mushrooms (whole if possible, quartered if large) and fry for a couple of minutes to get rid of any excess moisture. Set aside with the onions.

Put the beef and bacon back into the pan, stir through the flour until it has amalgamated and pour in the red wine. (This is where you add the strained marinade, if using.)

Let it bubble up for a minute or so and add the beef stock, garlic clove and bouquet garni. Season to taste with plenty of freshly ground black pepper but go easy on the salt because of the bacon. Cover and simmer gently on top of the stove for two hours.

Then add the mushrooms and onions and cook for another half hour or until the meat is meltingly tender.

If you're not eating the stew straight away, add the mushrooms and onions but finish the cooking on the day you want it. This freezes well and is all the better for being reheated at a later date.

]]>Gadgets and Gizmostag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.62510062014-12-04T13:35:01-05:002015-02-03T05:59:02-05:00Linda Duffinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-duffin/ I'm a sucker for kitchen gadgets and culinary bits and bobs. Like most people I have certain items that gather dust on the back of a shelf or bottom of a drawer but I have my favourites too, things I'd really miss and feel obliged to replace if (heaven forfend) the kitchen burned down.

This is was going to be my firemans' bucket list. Then I looked at my first draft and realised that a) most of them were electronics, b) a lot of them were expensive things we bought in the days when we had a disposable income rather than a disposed-of income and c) anyone with a small kitchen wouldn't have anywhere to keep them anyway.

So I've gone back to basics with some suggestions you may find useful if you're looking for a thoughtful gift for the cook in your life. Some will cost you a bob or two. Others are as cheap as chips, or nearly.

Hopefully they avoid the "look, darling, I bought you a new vacuum cleaner for Christmas" death wish pitfall.

Forgive me if I sound a bit Blue Peter but you don't always have to buy shiny new things. I'm not suggesting you rush out and source sticky-backed plastic and the cardboard bits from loo rolls or start crocheting tea cosies (unless that's your thing) but upcycling can work.

Slate food presentation boards are in a lot of Christmas catalogues. I got given a couple of roofing slates recently: we sealed them and stuck some felt circles on the bottom and they're perfect for serving cold meats and cheeses and cost us nothing. Some of my friends tell me they've done the same thing with beautiful old tiles for use as trivets.

Some of my favourite kitchen buys over the years have been at car boot sales: properly seasoned wooden spoons, a potato masher that doesn't cut into my hand when I use it, a fat, brown, shiny earthenware casserole that cost a fraction of what it would have been in a posh kitchen shop.

If you're looking for quirkier things for the person who has everything, other antiques fair/boot sale finds have included a ham gripper (so you don't get your fingers sticky when you're carving that ham on the bone), wooden butter moulds and my Mrs Portly branding iron. Less said about that the better but Him Outdoors is running scared.

I'm always chuffed if I'm given a lovely old plate or jug or bowl I can use in the kitchen and when I'm photographing food for Mrs Portly. And while a potato masher may not be top of your Christmas list a well-designed bit of kitchen kit, be it ever so humble, is always a pleasure to use.

Unfortunately there is some very ill-conceived stuff out there and until you actually use it you don't know whether it's going to be your favourite new thing or just another example of design triumphing over function. A friend I consulted in the writing of this post complained that she'd bought umpteen bread boards and chopping boards before finding one that worked for her.

If you have the space, a good butcher's block is a thing of beauty. Mine was built as part of our old kitchen by Ian Dunn and I love it so much that when we moved I took it with me. (It's free-standing, I'm not so obsessed that I demolished the kitchen.) It's chunky and solid and will probably outlive me.

We've also got a much cheaper one we bought from Ikea and it's lasted well. I'd just say buy the best you can afford, with the thickest slab of wood on the top that you can manage.

I'd avoid the "antique" ones you sometimes see, full of dips and hummocks, allegedly worn away by generations of butchers. Try slicing a carrot on one of those.

The same goes for wooden chopping boards and bread boards. A lot of them are laminated and they warp. We've got a couple like that, also from Ikea, and they're okay but like our shed door, they contract and expand depending on the humidity of the weather. Sometimes they're flat, sometimes they dip in the middle.

My husband, a practical man, suggests going to a carpenter and buying a solid chunk of wood, asking him (the carpenter, not my husband) to plane and sand it smooth and then taking it home and oiling it yourself. You can buy special food-safe oils but olive oil works too. Just let it soak in, then re-apply as necessary until you have a good sealed surface. You may have to give it a light sand between coats and re-oil it once a year but you'll end up with something made-to-measure that will last you for years.

Too DIY for you? Okay, apart from my electric food processor/coffee machine/bread machine/rice cooker/wok/other items of conspicuous consumption, these are shop-bought items I find useful. In no particular order ...

I have a couple of deep, heavy-duty pans I use on almost a daily basis, both German, one from Woll and one from Berndes. I think the two makes are on a par. They're made from cast aluminium, with glass oven-proof lids and detachable handles so you can use them on top of the stove and in the oven. They're not cheap but they're worth the money.

They're well-nigh indestructible - mine have seen some serious use and abuse - and fantastic for stews and curries or just a fry-up. Make sure you see them before you buy: some are heavy and unsuitable for people who have RSI or can't lift heavy weights, others are much lighter.

Microplane graters. They come in various shapes and sizes but you really only need one, with a medium rasp. Use them to grate anything from rock-hard parmesan to lemon rind but try not to grate your knuckles. They're phenomenally sharp.

If you're short on space a stick blender is a handy thing to have. They often come with accessories like a tiny blender jug but I think these are a waste of time. I usually stick my blender straight in the pan and save on washing up (not advisable if your pans are non-stick of course).

Moulis, or food mills, have gone out of fashion since so many of us acquired food processors, liquidisers or stick blenders.

But sometimes, if you want to puree something AND get the seeds or fibres out, they're infinitely preferable to pushing everything through a sieve.

Hand-operated ones are readily available but I really like my electric mouli. It's effortless to use.

Jar openers: if you've ever battled with opening a stubborn jar, especially one that's vacuum-sealed, you need one of these. They come in all shapes and sizes but the one I find most useful is a metal one from Brabantia. It has toothed grippers that fit all lid sizes.

We don't eat chips very often but I am ridiculously fond of our chip cutter. It's hardly a kitchen essential but it's such a nifty little gadget and childishly pleasing to use. They cost around a tenner so not quite as cheap as chips but close.

Tin openers: I'm straying dangerously close to death wish territory here but I've had so many completely useless ones, including (sorry, love) the battery-operated one my husband bought me one Christmas that I'm going to stick my neck out. My favourite is a Culinare MagiCan. It opens tins easily and doesn't leave you with a dangerously sharp edge.

If all else fails and you're panic-buying on Christmas Eve, a really good bottle of olive oil or balsamic vinegar is a welcome gift in any cook's kitchen. And I haven't talked here about cookbooks, but my top picks this year are Persiana, by Sabrina Ghayour and Dino Joannides' superb Semplice.

I'd love to know what you consider indispensable in your kitchen. Drop me a line and let me know. There may be something I can add to my Christmas list ...

No money changed hands in the writing of this post nor were any of the items mentioned manufacturers' freebies.]]>Saffron - Worth Its Weight In Goldtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2014:/theblog//3.61945942014-11-27T17:28:47-05:002015-01-27T05:59:01-05:00Linda Duffinhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/linda-duffin/

It wouldn't surprise me if yet-to-be discovered scrolls revealed that saffron was among the gifts given by the Three Wise Men that Christmas long ago. Forget frankincense and myrrh, ounce for ounce, good quality saffron actually costs more than gold. It's the world's most precious spice.

But given the effort involved in growing and harvesting it, I can't begrudge the expense.

Back in Tudor and Stuart times saffron used to be more widely grown in Britain than it is now, in Suffolk, Norfolk and Cambridgeshire as well as in the better-known Saffron Walden in Essex.

A scattering of growers around the country still farm it as a commercial crop and recently, thanks to Dr Sally Francis, it's been re-introduced to Norfolk.

At a secret location up on the north Norfolk coast Sally has turned a hobby into a cottage industry - quite literally.

Seventeen years ago she asked her mother to buy her 20 corms to experiment with. "They produced enough for one saffron risotto," says Sally. "It wouldn't have filled a matchbox but I was so pleased with it!"

Today, after planting a whopping 20 thousand corms, she runs a company called Norfolk Saffron producing some of the highest-grade saffron in the world.

I visited as the harvest got into full swing and found Sally and her mother sitting at the kitchen table, fingers flying, as they deftly picked the the stigmas from the flowers. It looked like a scene Van Eyck might have painted and indeed the process of saffron farming hasn't changed much in the intervening 600 years.

It's back-breaking work because everything has to be done by hand: planting the corms, picking the flowers, then plucking out the stigmas, the tiny filaments that are dried to make saffron. That alone is a phenomenally time-consuming and fiddly task. I know because they let me try my hand at it.

In the time it took me to pick the stigmas from a handful of flowers they'd set aside for me (I couldn't work on the commercial crop because of the hygiene regulations) Sally's mum Jill had a small red-gold heap in front of her. But she's had a lot of practice.

"People often ask me how many acres I have" says Sally ruefully. "It's actually only a quarter of an acre but this morning I picked more than six thousand flowers. It took me nearly three hours bent double." And with a harvest that varies in timings from year to year, Sally has sometimes been picking into December, in rain, hail and fog.

Picture copyright Dr Sally Francis, Norfolk Saffron

The saffron crocus, crocus sativus, isn't easy to grow commercially. "I specialised in agricultural botany," says Sally, whose doctorate is in plant pathology. "I've had to use all that expertise to get them to flower beyond just a few pretty flowers in the garden."

That's why she keeps her exact location a closely-guarded secret. She doesn't want potential rivals to figure out how she plants, harvests and dries her crop, all of which contribute to the quality of her product. "Iran produces 250 tonnes of saffron a year. I can't compete on quantity but I can on quality," says Sally.

Independent and impartial laboratory tests determine international quality standards for saffron and Sally gets top scores on all three component parts: the crocin, which gives you the colouring; the picrocrocin, which gives the flavour; and the safranal, which provides the aroma.

Sally's saffron is rated at the high end of the topmost grade, ISO 3632. "So ours is the best in the world! That is a real boost, a great cause for celebration," she says.

Picture copyright Dr Sally Francis, Norfolk Saffron

At around £25 a gramme, it is expensive. But as Sally points out, a little of her saffron goes a long way. She says she has used as little as a fifth of the quantity called for in some recipes. She gives me some to smell and the aroma is really powerful.

Then she pulls out her collection of saffrons from around the world, some of which aren't actually saffron at all. It's not uncommon for vendors in some countries to sell dried safflower, marigold or even coloured corn silk as saffron. So if you think you're getting a bargain, you're probably not.

This is the real thing. The wrong one can kill you.

Growing the real thing in your garden is always an option, though realistically you'd have to grow a phenomenal number of saffron crocuses to make it worth your while. And Sally cautions against harvesting anything other than crocus sativus.

"The stigma of others crocuses is toxic and can be fatal. It's scary how often people pick anything that looks like a crocus and eat it." Her mum chips in sardonically: "They won't do it twice."

Sally sells saffron pure and smoked, ready-mixed with plain and self-raising flours for bakers and the King Harry orange and saffron liqueur, which earned three stars in the 2014 Great Taste Awards.

I go home with my tiny parcel of hand-picked saffron filaments, with instructions from Sally to dry them above the Aga. Now I just have to decide what to do with them.

What's your favourite saffron recipe? Drop me a line at Mrs Portly's Kitchen and let me know. I'll send a Mrs Portly pinny to whoever comes up with the best one! (Sorry, can only post to the UK and Europe but all suggestions welcomed.)]]>